Opening Android App from Calendar

Question

The app I\'m working on needs to be able to create events in a chosen Calendar and then when the user views these events in their calendar viewing app it offers an option to

Answer 1

If targeting Jelly Bean (API 16+) is acceptable then using CUSTOM_APP_PACKAGE is the best solution. When adding the new calendar event, you just need to fill the CUSTOM_APP_PACKAGE and CUSTOM_APP_URI fields (with your package name and an URI identifying the event respectively):

ContentValues values = new ContentValues();
values.put(CalendarContract.Events.CALENDAR_ID, 1);
values.put(CalendarContract.Events.TITLE, "Check stackoverflow.com");
values.put(CalendarContract.Events.DTSTART, beginTime.getTimeInMillis());
values.put(CalendarContract.Events.DTEND, endTime.getTimeInMillis());
values.put(CalendarContract.Events.EVENT_TIMEZONE, TimeZone.getDefault().getID());

values.put(CalendarContract.Events.CUSTOM_APP_PACKAGE, getPackageName());
values.put(CalendarContract.Events.CUSTOM_APP_URI, "myAppointment://1");

getContentResolver().insert(CalendarContract.Events.CONTENT_URI, values);       

Then you need to specify as part of AndroidManifest.xml (as the documentation explains) the Activity that will be called from the Calendar app to show the detailed view, e.g.

    <activity android:name=".ShowCalendarDetailActivity">
        <intent-filter>
            <action android:name="android.provider.calendar.action.HANDLE_CUSTOM_EVENT" />
            <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
            <data android:mimeType="vnd.android.cursor.item/event" />
        </intent-filter>            
    </activity>

ShowCalendarDetailActivity will be started when tapping on the button that appears, and will be passed an Intent with action "android.provider.calendar.action.HANDLE_CUSTOM_EVENT" and its URI will be the calendar item URI.

The custom URI you supplied is in the extras, with key CalendarContract.EXTRA_CUSTOM_APP_URI.

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState)
{
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    String myCustomUri = getIntent().getStringExtra(CalendarContract.EXTRA_CUSTOM_APP_URI);

    ...
}

If you want to take a look at the code where the Calendar app builds this intent, see EventInfoFragment.updateCustomAppButton() in EventInfoFragment.java.

Answer 2

The first option you listed works fine on my Nexus S. I just tried it right now to make sure it was working coming from the default Google Calendar app.

In my case, I'm not intercepting myapp://event/1000, I'm intercepting an actual url more like https://myspecialdomain.com/blahblah. The browser starts to load, but before it has the time to load anything, it gets swapped out by my application.

I can show you my code tomorrow if you want.